Arabic Translaion Next Steps

[Isam Bayazidi <bayazidi at arabeyes dot org>]

Salam all ..
  It seems that that day is coming soon ..The KDE 3 release candidate 4 is 
packaged .. And the Arabic Translation will ship with KDE 3. And I hope that 
in the upcoming months we will do the following:

* Finish up Translation on the KDE3 GUI ( all folders accept 'docs')
* proof read all the translation files to check the spelling, readability,
  and consistansy. (Will brief you later about how to do and organize this
  process)
* Finalize the Koffice (next Koffice can do Arabic, and it scheduled to
   release by June)
* There will be many changes in the original messages of KDE3 upon release 
   after finding mistakes and so .. we will keep coping with the POT files
   changes ( in KDE CVS)
* There will be also changes in the Arabic Translation of KDE 3 after getting
   it used by hundreds .. I hope that everyone will not hesitate for a second
   to report any spelling/context/consistansy mistake in the Arabic
   Translation .. 

What do we need to do as well:
* Start right after the KDE 3 release ( after people can see results) a
   campaign to call for volunteers in our project. We will call for
   translators (who have good English/Arabic), Proof Readers ( who should
   have good Arabic with no need of other language).
* Call for feedback from Arab users .. If they don't like the Arabic
   interface, then help fix it .. report bugs related to the KDE 3
   Translation ( Arabeyes Bug tracker will be great for that).

Now About the Gnome Translation (which alot of you really want, including me) 
I hope that this will happen:
* The call for translators well result on more volunteers
* We will use the KDE translation Database (created by Kbabel) to roughly
   translate the PO files of Gnome. Rough Translation (for those who do not
   know it) result in giving fuzzy translation for strings. Those fuzzy
   translation need human interaction to make readable and proper
   translation. This process will help in finding good translation for
   at least 50-60% of the strings knowing that both KDE and Gnome are desktop
   systems that are used for the same perposes.
* Start working on the Gnome Translation.. hoping in getting Arabic
   Translation with Gnome 2+ ( the release after Gnome 2)

We will start giving Gnome higher priority by time ending with the state 
where Gnome and KDE are at the same priority level. The Gnome PO files are 
more rich in strings ( have a lot more strings) that will result heavy work 
by everyone.

This is the proposed plan .. I am very open to your comments and suggestions. 
Please put in mind that we are in a good state in general .. but we did face 
some slowdown that could harm the translation project and it's progress.. We 
need to get up, and if you think that you will not have time to go on.. then 
help finding people that can help us go on .. this is YOUR responsability and 
EVERYONE should participate if they can.. The project results will benefit 
ALL Arabs, and will give the Arabic language a higher rank in the Linux world.


-- 
Yours,
Isam Bayazidi
Amman - Jordan
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 Think Linux + Think Arabic = Think www.arabeyes.org
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